Radio
by greenwool
Summary: When she finally pulls herself free of the smoking wreckage she realizes several things at once: she's in the middle of the hottest Dead zone in the Ozarks, her gun is gone, and her ankle is broken. Very broken.
1. Chapter 1

This started as just a drabble for oywiththepeetaalready on tumblr and somehow I found myself with two follow up drabbles and plans for a fourth. Whoops. I have no plans to expand this further than one more drabble, but it was mentioned that I should post this on my AO3/FF so here we are!

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><p>When she finally pulls herself free of the smoking wreckage she realizes several things at once: she's in the middle of the hottest Dead zone in the Ozarks, her gun is gone, and her ankle is broken. Very broken. According to her map, the field she went down in is the empty trench between I-95 and South 836, but it won't stay empty for long.<p>

They're coming.

She can hear their low moans from the sparsely wooded areas surrounding her impromptu crashpad as they carry cross the field, raising the hairs on the back of her neck and making her palms itch and sweat. There's a lot of them, she can tell by how much noise they're making as they crash through the underbrush, and one way or another she is going to have to make a move.

Her fingers fumble with the switch on the side of her helmet and relief fills her when radio crackles to life. At least _that_ made it through the crash.

"Firebird to Garage, do you copy?"

The fuzz of her radio fading out fills her helmet. As she waits for base to respond, she staggers along the side of the copter, scavenging the remains for something,anything, she can use as a weapon. Except for the meager hunting knife she had shoved in her pack she comes up empty handed. A cold wave of fear washes over her.

Can't run. No weapon. Walkers already on their way.

"This is Firebird," she snaps into her radio. "Come in Garage. Repeat: Firebird to Garage, please come in."

Silence.

"Fuck. FUCK!"

"…Hello?"

Her breath catches in her throat.

"Garage this is District runner Firebird reporting from southbound 95. I am grounded, repeat, grounded on southbound 95. Do you copy?"

Her radio buzzes to life again and she sags against the hot metal of what's left of her copter.

"Uh- uh- Yes. I mean, ten-four Firebird. Are you ok?"

She only vaguely recognizes the voice coming through her headset. It could be the distortion from the radio. It made everyone's voices sound weird, but she was sure she knew everyone at the base well enough to recognize them even through these crackling, fuzzy speakers.

"Who am I speaking to?"

There's silence for a moment on the other end, and then-

"Copy that Firebird. Grounded on I-95. Do you need a pick up?"

He was avoiding her question, but there's no time to think too far into it.

"Please and thank you," she responds. "Got what sounds like a pack on my tail. Requesting an emergency lift."

"Ten-four Firebird. I'm passing it on. Repeat: Are you ok?"

She rolls her eyes. _Who was this guy?_

"I'm fine."

A piercing crackle bursts in her ear. Her eyes dart up as the first walker breaks the treeline, stumbling forward with its dead eyes fixed directly on her. She turns back to the cab of the helicopter, and eyes it over one last time. Steaming metal, none of it splintered. Her pack full of extra rations and a spare sweater. Her water canteen, busted to shit. Nothing even remotely close to a weapon.

"Uhm, what?"

"I said I'm fine, Garage. Whats the ETA on my lift?"

"We got you in two hours at the top of 836."

A bead of sweat drips down her neck despite the chill in the air.

"Are you serious?"

Three more dead break into the open on her left, one surging forward to the front of the pack, his jaw snapping wildly.

"I tried- I told them-," he says. He sounds desperate. "They said two hours. Top of 836 is maybe three miles away. You have time. You can make it."

The walker at the front makes a strangled, guttural howl as it stumbles forward and collapses. She grips her knife harder and leans back against the copter, closing her eyes.

"Listen Garage," she says, breathing out slowly through her nose. "I don't have two hours, and I can't do 836. They have to get me here."

"No can do Firebird. Its too hot."

She snorts.

"Don't I know it."

There's silence for a moment over the line, and she wrenches her eyes open. There's fifteen walkers now. Maybe twenty. And she's the center of attention. Leaning some weight down on her ankle, she tries to take a step forward and cries out.

"Firebird? Firebird are you ok? Talk to me. Whats going on? Are there walkers? How many?"

"I'm not," she gasps. "I'm not ok."

"Whats happened?"

"My ankle. I can't walk on it- its broken."

"And walkers?"

She wipes her nose with the back of her hand.

"Yeah. Some."

A sharp rush of static fuzzes through the radio. She should tell him to call off the pick up. It wasn't worth it. She's not going to make it. The two highways that stretch around her are packed with abandoned cars, and even if she made it to the crest of 836, those cars are full of even more walkers. And thats assuming she made it through the marshy forest between the clearing and the highway to begin with. The small knife in her hand trembles against her thigh.

"Listen Firebird. You can get to 836. If you can take one step forward, you can take two. And then three. And there'll be a copter waiting for you, and I'll- I'll be here too. For every step."

She tries to put more weight on her foot, and takes a few hobbled steps forward, ignoring the shooting pain that races up her leg. She whimpers, then bites her lip.

"Who are you?," she bites out. "If I'm going to do this, I need to know who I'm talking to."

"Tell you what. When you're back at base, I'll- I'll be waiting for you on the landing strip. I'll introduce myself then."

She stumbles another few tortured steps, ignoring the chorus of moans and the dull thunder of plodding feet behind her. She whimpers into the headset.

"I want to come home, Garage."

"I know. I know you do. And you're going to, I promise you can do it. Come on, Firebird. One foot in front of the other and before you know, you'll be home."


	2. Chapter 2

As the helicopter touches down her forehead is lolling against the back window. Sweat has soaked completely through her clothes, and chills race through her. She's shaking and even the emergency blanket the medic puts on her doesn't do a damn thing to stop it.

The first thing he did as soon as they were safely in the air was cut her boot off- and he wasn't gentle about it. He explained that the blood in her foot could have been cut off by the swelling of her ankle, and if that was the case, she may never walk again. Let alone run.

"It don't look that bad," he said. "You might get to keep that foot afterall."

Before the blades on top of the copter even stop spinning the pilot and medic unbuckle themselves and rush to unlatch the passenger's seat. It shuttles forward suddenly and with a angry squeal that she hears even over the roar of the dying engine. She jolts up with a yelp, then throws herself as far back into the corner of the cab as she can get, her eyes wide and wild. The medic and pilot exchange glances, and she knows they're both thinking the same thing.

Her body might be here, but in her head she's still lost somewhere between those highways surrounded by walkers.

She ignores them. What could they possibly know of what she's been through? They weren't runners. They were cozy in their beds back at base when she started her run this morning, and the last walker they fought off was before they ever found Sanctuary13. They don't know what its like out there. They have no idea. Only one other person does, and he's the only person in the world she wants to see right now. He said he'd be right here waiting when she landed.

He promised.

But she doesn't see anyone else on the strip, and for a single moment, she wonders if he had just been a figment of her desperate imagination. A steady voice in her ear she needed so badly that her mind heard it whether or not it was real. She tries not to flinch away when the medic reaches for her and lifts her out of the cockpit in his arms. As he does he gives her a clear view of the surrounding area.

No one else is there.

A coldness trickles down her spine. He was real. He had to be. How could he have arranged her pickup if he wasn't? How could he have given her that alternate route on exit 67 because that horde was on the exit she had initially planned to use?

"Who's in the radio room?," she asks shakily. "I need to talk to them."

"What?"

"Who manned the radio while I was out there?"

The pilot shakes his head.

"No one. We didn't even know your headset survived. We were calling you for an hour after your bird went down and when you didn't come through, we just started in on the emergency pick up."

"No. No! There was someone there."

The medic smiles gently.

"Well, we can figure all of this out after we get you-"

"NO! Someone was there and I need to see him! He called in my pick up, he-"

"No one called in a pick up. What the hell are you talking about?," the pilot grunts.

"Katniss, you're in shock. We're going to get you to the doctor right-"

Movement in the corner of her eye catches her attention. A head of blonde hair. An anxious face melting into a warm smile. Her heart stutters.

Its a boy in a wheelchair at the furthest edge of the landing strip. She's seen him before: he is one of the mechanics that kept their equipment running, and he had been the one to check her radio before she took off that morning. He had even insisted on cracking it open and changing her batteries.

"Better safe than sorry," he had said as he handed it back to her.

Maybe if he had been the one to check her engine her copter wouldn't be in a million pieces in the middle of the hottest Dead zones in the US.

But had it been him who had guided her home?

He raises a hand and curls his fingers.

She doesn't know how she manages it, but one moment she's in the medic's arms, and the next her face is buried in the shirt of the boy in wheelchair, her legs thrown over the side of the chair and her fingers twisting in the shoulders of his shirt.

"Mellark," she hears the pilot snap. "She needs to get to Doctor Abernathy right the hell now."

"I can take her," he says. It that same voice from her headset. She swears she'd recognize it anywhere now.

"Just make sure she gets there. And fast. That ankle don't look good, and she's going on about some ghost radio operator. Stan thinks its the shock."

The boy clears his throat.

"Actually…," he says. "She came in on the radio I was doing those upgrades on. I tried to tell Coin but she wouldn't listen. Said her headset must be shorting out or something. You know how she gets…"

The three men are deathly silent for a moment, but she's too busy clinging to the owner of the voice that guided her to safety to think about what it might mean.

"Thank you," Katniss breathes into his shirt, so quietly she thinks he won't hear.

But he does.

His hand comes up to rest on her back, softly at first, and then both of his arms are around her.

"Welcome home, firebird."

Her face sinks into the space between his shoulder and neck, and her eyes drift shut.


	3. Chapter 3

She wakes with a rattling gasp in darkness so complete its suffocating.

For several minutes, she sits shaking on her cot, her fingers curled tightly and her nails digging into her palms. My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am nineteen years old. Her head drops into her hands and she kicks the blanket away from her sticky skin. I am from Atlanta. My sister is dead. My family is dead. I am in Sanctuary 13.

Blue numbers burn in the corner of her eye. Her clock says it's late enough that the entire camp except the sentries will be sleeping, so there's no way Coin can fix her with those cold, fathomless green eyes. She comes to stand with only a slight bit of wobbling and limps quickly out of her room and into the hallway. It's dark, always dark here. The entire compound is built of windowless concrete and reinforced steel, but the hallways especially are shadowy and claustrophobic, even with the buzzing blue-white lights overhead. The metallic creaking of her crutch seems so much louder out here, but she isn't sure if that's because of the heavy silence or because she knows she shouldn't be wandering out to the roof at night.

She wonders if anyone has heard her. Peeta keeps warning her to keep her head down until she's back on her feet, and sneaking out of her barrack past midnight and waking up the entire compound is definitely not what he's talking about. Her fingers close around the heavy latch on the door to the stairwell and she slides it open. A shock races down her spine as it groans on its hinges.

She waits for a moment, motionless at the stop of the stairs until she's sure no one is up. When none of the doors in the barracks open she drags herself toward the stairs, then stops dead between the up and down staircases. A wisp of her dream flits back through her mind and cold dread seizes her. Running. A house. White eyes peering through wooden slats. A pack of living corpses foaming at her heels as she tears through a swamp. And then Prim said-

A tightness seizes her chest and before she knows what she's doing, she's hobbling down the stairs, away from the roof, her crutch creaking in frustration at her frenzied pace. She nearly trips in her haste as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, but she catches herself just in time.

She stumbles down another hall, just as dark as the other, but a wall of generators vibrating just outside fills this one with a barely perceptible rumble. She turns left down a short corridor and an audible sigh escapes her when she sees a glow of muted, warm light leaking around a door at the very end.

He's still awake.

Her knuckles barely rasp on the steel door when it swings open, and Peeta's tousled hair and sleepy eyes peer up at her. Her heart leaps into her throat.

"You said I could come," she blurts. She leaves off the second part-If I needed to.

His smile is slow, but he eases his chair back and motions her in. She hesitates just outside, her fingers curling around the handle of her crutch.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't-"

"You got here just in time," he interrupts, his gazing flickering to his work table. "I'm almost done."

Curiosity wins her over and she limps, still with a little hesitation, into his room. His desk is an explosion of circuit boards and a rainbow of wires, an organized chaos she knew would only make sense to him. Before 'The End' had come, she hadn't so much as stepped a foot inside a college classroom, let alone paid much attention in high school. It all seemed so useless to study for a career she'd never have. It was Prim who had had the future. Not her.

"Come on," he says. "Seriously, this is the cool part."

She inches forward.

"Wait!"

Panicked, she blanches.

"No, here. This side."

He motions toward his right.

"Sorry," he says apologetically. "Left handed. The soldering iron is there and if it hurt you I'd never forgive myself."

Something tells her that he really wouldn't.

"Ok," he breathes, picking up the iron and touching the very tip against a piece of bare wire. The metal bubbles suddenly and tiny drops of it fall on a green circuit board where two wires whisper against each other. "I'm connecting them. See this melted metal? It binds them together so the electrical current can pass from one wire to the next."

He places the iron back on the table and looks up from the circuit board, a little smile playing at his lips.

"This is just an experiment. I'm pretty sure it will work but… Here."

He hands an old nokia cell phone, which has been wired to a weird collection of other circuits on the table.

"Did you ever have one of these? You know…. before?"

She nods numbly. She hasn't seen a cell phone in three years. Not a working one, anyway. This one must be from the early 2000's. Its screen lights up green and bright, and its case is only cracked on one side. And it works.

"Try sending a text."

"Peeta, I don't think-"

"No, I'm serious," he says. "I know it says 'no service'. Try anyway."

The 'to' box at the top of the screen has a series of indecipherable, glitched symbols.

She frowns, turning the phone over. The back has been completely removed, and in its place is another mess of circuits and wires. She bites her lip. The prickle of being watched races down her neck and she looks over to see Peeta looking at her expectantly as her fingers brush lightly over the keyboard.

"What do I say?," she mumbles.

Her thumb catches on the scratched '7' key.

"Whatever you want."

A short breath eases out of her nose. She taps out the message and hits 'send'.

Less than a second later a ticker screen on Peeta's desk beeps softly and her message lights up red and insistent.

Prim- Be home soon.

The words burn her eyes. How often had she sent this message? She didn't even need to look down in order to type it, but she had been transfixed by the image of her fingers on a working keyboard. She chokes and drops the phone with a clatter on his desk.

Peeta's eyes are locked on the screen too. He seems to understand what she's done- typed something out of instinct. Something she'd written over and over until it was nearly synonymous with a phone being in her hand, and inadvertently she's summoned the ghost of their former lives.

She knows he wants to ask.

Did you ever make it home to Prim?

He clears his throat and packs the phone away into a box.

"Its not a real cell phone, just something I threw together."

He unplugs the soldering iron and flicks a switch under his desk. Her message flickers then dies.

"I didn't know it would work, but after your radio I wanted to make something you could…"

He looks down at his hands.

"You made this- for me?"

"Well, for anyone really. There would be broad tactical advantages to reviving technology with cell phone like capabilities but with more a sustainable power cell that-"

He snaps his mouth shut suddenly, his cheeks coloring. She wonders what he had done for a job, before. Maybe computer programming. That sounded smart. He had a sweatshirt with a fancy college's initials on it. Had he gone there?

"Yes," he whispers. "I made it for you."

Her stomach squirms, warm and fluttering in a way she wouldn't exactly define as bad.

"If it works, you'll be able to send messages to me no matter where you are. And the cell phone case can be replaced and it would nearly indestructible. I thought, when you're back out there, this might-"

"I might not be able to," she mumbles.

Peeta frowns.

"Run, I mean."

"Did Haymitch tell you that?"

She nods slowly, her eyes finding the chalk-white cast weighing on her ankle. The very tips of her toes peek out- pink and brown and still fat.

Peeta purses his lips.

"Did he give you odds?"

"No. He just said I'd be lucky to walk enough to be useful, let alone run."

Peeta hums and plants his chin on his hand on the arm of his chair. His eyes space out for a moment, and she can almost hear the gears in his brain whistle as they spin.

"Well. Realistically, there's no way to know. Its a little bit of a schrodinger's cat. Seems a bit premature to write you off altogether."

Peeta spins his chair around continues to put items on the desk away in their respective drawers. At the far end of the table sits a circuit board with the words'Katniss: Test 4c'. She reaches out to touch it before she can stop herself. How much thought had he put into tonight's experiment? At least a few numbers and letters worth. The wire catches on her finger as she moves away and it pops off the green panel it had been attached to. She jerks her arm back in horror.

"It's ok," Peeta says as he rolls to her side. "The soldering was loose anyway. You didn't break it."

"I did break it, I-"

"No no, you didn't, it was already-"

"I shouldn't have touched-"

"You were curious. It's ok to touch," he says earnestly, and with just a touch of shyness. A moment passes where she's not sure what to say. "That is- if you want to."

Why did he do that? Say things she was sure had a second meaning, as if they were both in on some big secret. The kinds of things that made her head spin and her heart race. She flushes and stares at her one good foot planted on the ground, and then her other, useless dead weight she might drag behind her for the rest of her life.

"I have to go," she says.

She's no good at the things that mattered. Building. Fixing. Figuring things out. Not like Peeta is. It seemed that if Peeta wanted something, all he had to do was put his brain to it and the problem nearly solved itself. What could he possibly want to keep helping her for? Running is all she was ever good for, and now she's good for nothing whatsoever.

"Wait- Katniss. Please don't. Don't leave. Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

She stills, her eyes darting from his face to fix themselves on the stacked milk crates full of tools just to his left. He's said something that's not quite true, but she doesn't know what or how, just that the apology doesn't fit in with all the other things he said. But he means it. He really is sorry.

"What I meant is that I don't care if you break every damn thing in here."

"Why?"

The word leaves her mouth without her permission and hangs, impudent and shivering, in the air.

Peeta looks at her with an expression that's almost pained.

"You don't know?"

She shakes her head.

He laughs, short and bitter.

"I guess it's not so obvious when you're in a wheelchair. It's easy to not notice us."

What did he mean by that? Her heart quivers frantically. That word- notice. As if she's done anything but from the moment he saved her life. As if she had any choice but to watch him, all golden hair, easy smiles and strong arms. What would it be like to be in them, just one more time?

Home. That's what it would feel like. Like coming home.

"I do. I notice you," she breathes. "You survived The End with one leg and a backpack full of electrical equipment. You watch the sunrise every morning. You double-check everything you do. You build miracles, and then pretend like they don't matter. But they do. They matter to me."

What she doesn't say singes her tongue.

You matter to me.

Peeta's hands twitch. A tension is building inside of her, so tight and so frenetic that she's sure she'll go insane if she doesn't-

If she can't-

She doesn't know what, exactly. His eyes raise to hers. Her heart stutters.

Suddenly she's kissing him, and instead of pushing her away he's pulling her closer. This only stokes the quivering heat in her belly until it blossoms into something that needs and consumes all at once. If it weren't for his hands cupping her face she's sure it would swallow her whole. As it is his touch is a double edged sword, easing the fire only to inspire it to new heights. She climbs onto his lap, her knees on either side of his leg, kissing him feverishly while he urges her to go slow with gentle hands and soft whispers.

But it's no use. This heat is his. This flutter in her stomach is too. It only wants him closer and she's in no position to deny it.

He lays her on his cot and pulls himself onto it using his one leg. He blushes, as if he's ashamed to reveal how he has to navigate the world. Anger flares in her chest, but it's not as hot as what's beneath her skin. She straddles him and leans over so their noses are a breath away from one another.

His hands come to rest hesitantly on her hips and there's no time to wonder how this happened, or why, because all she wants is for him to make her forget her nightmare, to sear the cold sweat from her skin with hands that light her darkest corners and a mind that's dead set on bringing her home come hell or high water.

And there's no doubt in her mind that this world is hell.

Her sister's corpse is out there somewhere ambling toward oblivion with a cell phone in its pocket that still said 'Prim- be home soon' because even though Katniss knew she was too late to save her, she couldn't shoot the monster that still bore her face. So she ran.

And for that Katniss believed her punishment had to be that she could never stop running.

Until Peeta's voice in her ear made her believe that she could still come home- no matter how lost she was.


End file.
